IMPORTANT - update on the alleged Kelly family photo

[Chris Scott]

On the subject of family legends I'm sure virtually every family has them. There has been a TV series in the UK (the name of which I cannot remember) in which families that had a story of some link to royalty or the nobility had their family legends investigated. Perhaps surprisingly, most of them had some element of truth in them.
The only one I know of personally is by marriage in that my brother in law has in his family the long standing story that they are descended from an illegitimate daughter of Lord Shaftesbury but we have been unable to cast any light on this
Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

On the subject of family legends I'm sure virtually every family has them. There has been a TV series in the UK (the name of which I cannot remember) in which families that had a story of some link to royalty or the nobility had their family legends investigated. Perhaps surprisingly, most of them had some element of truth in them.
The only one I know of personally is by marriage in that my brother in law has in his family the long standing story that they are descended from an illegitimate daughter of Lord Shaftesbury but we have been unable to cast any light on this
Chris

Copying a post I made several years ago on another forum

I had a nice surprise a few years ago when through a genealogist colleague in Wales (Peter Birchwood) I got a "gig" appearing on-camera for a segment of such a show. I think though that the show I appeared on was called "Find-a-Fortune" or something similar. Could that be right?

In any case, Granada TV hired a local cameraman here in the Baltimore area and sent a team over to interview me. The producers wanted me to discuss heirs to the fortune of the Calvert family, the Lords Baltimore, the colonial proprietors of the colony of Maryland. I was filmed leaning against a cannon at Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor.

The legitimate line of the Calvert family died out in the eighteenth century when the last Lord Baltimore passed away. The last colonial proprietor of Maryland was Henry Harford, an illegitimate son of the last lord. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say.

At the time of the American Revolution, the Calvert family estates were confiscated by the new American authorities.

I think it's doubtful that anyone alive today has the lineage to be able to claim anything from the Calvert estate. That having been said, if someone could successfully make such a claim, it could involve billions of dollars of prime real estate in downtown Baltimore City. So if you think you might be an heir, matey, go for it!!!!

Chris

[Livia]

Hi Livia

True. But this Kelly family had been in the United States for generations and were not recent immigrants with a sister who had been recently murdered in Spitalfields. The claimed connection was clearly bogus so I am not sure it was an honest mistake.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,

But it could also be that the present day owner of the
pictures knows only what she's been told, and there's
at least two generations between the family in the
picture and her. Not everyone takes an interest in
family history and she may have been relying on
Chris to prove or disprove what she'd heard, while
still trying to protect her family's anonymity.

I don't disagree with you, this could very well be
a hoaxer with too much time on her hands and
not enough cable channels. But on the other hand,
if this was an honest mistake or she's placed too
much faith in what she was told, for the price
of a month's subscription to Ancestry, she can
learn her true family history (or at least what's
been researched by distant relatives) and that's
a good thing.

Liv

[Steven Russell]

Bad luck, Chris. But very interesting research nonetheless. Many of us were fascinated by the whole thing. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[Carol]

Whether I have been the object of a deliberate hoax or whether the lady who sent this material to me back in 2009 did so in good faith I know not. Needless to say I have sent this discovery to her for comment but have so far received nothing.
Obviously this casts severe if not fatal doubt on the alleged pic of Mary Kelly herself.
My apologies for basically wasting your time but I did act in good faith and only after a lengthy period - if I have been deliberately hoaxed I fail to understand the motive or the satisfaction in it
Chris Scott

Hello Chris,

Thank you for letting us know so quickly about this new development. You do not need to apologise at all. You definitely acted as I would have acted myself in your situation.

I spent several very enjoyable evenings looking through my books here at home for any clues with regard to dress, hairstyles, etc. In the process I even managed to confirm a date for an old photograph in my brother's possession - late 1860's. So you can have a very big 'thank you' for that!
(I have a photocopy).

As Liv has just said - the photos have reawakened a thirst for more knowledge of Mary Kelly and her background. The research she and Debs have done recently with regard to the soldier brother is invaluable in my opinion . Kelly might not even be her real surname! As a relative 'newbie' to the Ripper case I'm finding it fascinating.

So, let's look at it this way - if we have all been the subjects of a hoax (which I think is very likely) then in my opinion what was probably meant to be a 'good laugh' and make us all work hard for nothing and feel really stupid and angry, has actually been a great help to us.

With love from Carol

[Robert]

Could there be two copies of the same family picture, pased down through different branches of the family?

[Archaic]

Thank You

Chris, I want to applaud you for the very professional, cautious and thorough way in which you approached the possible "Mary Kelly" photo. You made it very clear from the start that it was only an "alleged" photo and we all understood that the odds of it being the Miller's Court Mary were infinitesimally small.

I'm pleased that everybody on Casebook behaved so calmly and courteously, and instead of jumping to conclusions and shrieking about "hoaxes" simply knuckled down to do the necessary research. We all learn so much when we cooperate and share our different areas of knowledge in a sincere and sensible way! That's what I love about Casebook.

My feeling is that it is an honest mistake on the part of the lady who sent it to you two years ago. If it was a deliberate hoax I don't think she would have been so diffident and asked you to keep it private for two years. As others have said, oral family history often becomes garbled over the years and many honest mistakes are made and passed on. It frequently resembles a game of "Operator" or "Chinese Whispers".

I think we can agree that we've all had an interesting few weeks and have increased our knowledge of a wide range of subjects relating not only to Mary Kelly, but to many other fascinating elements of Victorian-era history and research.

My thanks to everybody who participated!

Best regards,
Archaic

[lynn cates]

Hear, hear.

Hello Bunny. Hear hear. Cooperation is the answer. Saves both time and energy.

Cheers.
LC

[Chris Scott]

Thanks for the kind messages - all appreciated and let's hope that the positives from this will bear fruit
Chris

[miss marple]

Both photos never felt right to me. Chris has been as usual, circumspect,fair and open in his concerns. This unmasking of fakes info is as important as finding the truth and the knowledge on this site covers so many fields that not a lot gets past the sceptical eye.

Always questioning and never taking anything for granted is true research, Cheers Chris.

Miss Marple

[Livia]

Could there be two copies of the same family picture, pased down through different branches of the family?

Yes there could be.

But of the 9 families who have submitted a
Kelly-Mannix public family tree to Ancestry, 6 have
the exact same picture (with the handwritten
caption "Uncles Gran pap and Ma") and 3
have no pictures at all. Two of the 9 trees
were submitted by the same person (possibly
a separate tree for two conjoined branches)
under different titles. All but two have recent
log in dates, so they're active. Of the two,
one with the suspect name has not been
accessed in 10 months, the other has not
been accessed in 9 months, but the owner
has what looks like a legit forename and
surname.

And two of the nine, the trees submitted by
the same person, claims to have 111 generations
going back to 4000 BC and descends from Adam.

Liv

[Phil Carter]

Thanks for the kind messages - all appreciated and let's hope that the positives from this will bear fruit
Chris

Hello Chris.

please accept my gratitude for all of your hard work- both that we have seen and that which is unseen. For many of us 'long in the tooth' in this genre, we recognise what must be, although very graciously taken by your good self, an enormous burst balloon.
None who have experienced that feeling would deny you the right to disappointment, no matter how cautious you have been.
I for one, and I fully believe I can speak for all here, would say that your research methodology has been, as usual, impeccable throughout, and is a reflection of your genuine desires to produce truth when much around has been littered with blatant dishonesty. Things have changed in the last 30odd years, and people are nowhere near as gullible as perhaps they once were. There is a veritable army of DEDICATED people that dont want the old days of hoaxes, or 'just for a laugh' jesters to re-emerge from the abyss once more.

I hope that this is a genuine mistake, but to be honest, fear not. For my own part, I couldnt understand why the 'brothers' names werent known if a person is a decendant of one of those brothers. The photo you have now produced tells me why. "Uncles".
Also the "unsure" maiden name caused by not being able to decifer the writing on the photo.
I really do hope my suspicions are wrong.

I really do.

Many thanks again to you for your honest, sterling work.

Best wishes

Phil

[Archaic]

Chris, it occurred to me that the lady who sent the photo might have covered the inscription "Uncles, Gran, Pa and Ma" simply because she was trying to protect the privacy of the modern descendants, rather than trying to "fool" us in any way. She probably doesn't do genealogy, but from the wording of the inscription it's obvious to anyone who reads it that it was inscribed during a subsequent generation by Bridget's descendants, at which time Bridget would be "Gran" and her brothers "Uncles". The lady might not have wanted modern-day descendants traced and contacted, so she covered it.

And I believe you mentioned that she is a member of that family by marriage rather than direct descent? So she is also less likely to know century-old details. Families in America spread far and wide over vast distances, lose contact, and lose bits of family history along the way.

I'm thinking that this lady might have had her own private ideas and "suspicions" regarding the identity of her husband's family ancestors that she wasn't ready to share with the modern day family. She showed great caution and a desire for privacy, which I don't believe a "hoaxer" would.
Perhaps she just wanted to find out if her own personal ideas regarding the family - that they were related to the Miller's Court Mary Kelly- was even remotely possible, so she contacted you? I believe you said she waited until a certain older family member had passed away to finally give you permission to post the photos, so that makes sense.

When she came across the photo of the lady in the hat, maybe she thought the era was right. Unfortunately most family photos go uninscribed, and subsequent generations have no idea who the individuals in the photo are; that's why they are thrown away or sold to antique dealers by the thousands. The photos that are inscribed are often very difficult to read, particularly if they were written by an elderly person. The ink sometimes smears and fades, and pencil definitely fades. It often takes a high-magnification jeweler's loupe to decipher the handwriting, but some simply remains illegible.

I'm just trying to say that I'm inclined to give the lady the benefit of the doubt.

Above all, I give her credit for going about exploring the identity of the people in the photos in a very sensible way, by turning to you for help. You did a great job, as always.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Could there be two copies of the same family picture, pased down through different branches of the family?

I think Robert's suggestion is emminently sensible, and may well prove to be the case...

Thanks, Chris, for the update...as others have commented, we've had a lot of pleasure, one way or another, out of the picture anyway!

Best regards

Dave

[Chris Scott]

Chris, I believe you mentioned that she is a member of that family by marriage rather than direct descent? So she is also less likely to know century-old details.
Best regards,
Archaic

As it was told to me the lady who sent the pic was descended from the married daughter of one of the brothers in the back row of the family group. Thus she herself had never borne the surname of Kelly as she came down through the female line and so would have been under the daughter's married name. She never told me the name of the brother she was supposedly descended from - I don't know if this means she didn't know it or did not wish to divulge it.
The married daughter (the lady's great grandmother) moved to Canada where the lady herself now lives - in New Brunswick.